by Allen Drury
This last remark, going rather farther in the heat of hyperbole than the President had intended and touching as it did very close to possibilities that were very lively in both their minds, brought a sudden awkward little silence that the President finally broke with a casual show of interest.
“How are things going with you these days, anyway?” he asked. “Legislative schedule pretty heavy right now, is it?”
“Well, you know how it is this time of year,” the Vice President said politely, knowing very well that there wasn’t a bill at the Capitol whose exact status at that moment the President didn’t know. “We dawdle along for the first three or four months of the session and then it begins to pick up speed. I’d say it will be quite heavy from now on until adjournment.”
“Do you find enough to do?” the President asked rather patronizingly. “Yourself, I mean? Maybe I could use you on some international projects if you’d like, NATO or UN, the Pan-American Union, that sort of thing.”
“Oh, I find quite enough, thank you, Mr. President,” Harley said with dignity. “Lately,” he added casually on a sudden inspiration, “I find quite a bit of my time is taken up with talking to Ambassadors—”
“Ambassadors?” the President said sharply. “How’s that?”
“Oh, they seem to want to see me,” Harley said, suddenly finding that he was beginning to enjoy himself immensely. “Tashikov ... Khaleel....The usual crowd,” he concluded airily, and let some more ginger ale run into his glass with a satisfying fizzz! while the President looked at him closely.
“Why should they want to see you?” he demanded bluntly. The Vice President smiled.
“They don’t tell me exactly,” he said. “I just have to guess.”
“Oh?” the President said dryly. “And what do you guess?”
“Oh, I really don’t know,” the Vice President said, wandering over to the window and feeling quite light-headed with his own daring. “What a beautiful view we get from here,” he said, “over the Ellipse and the Washington Monument.”
“I do get a nice view,” the President agreed, stressing the pronoun.
“It must be pleasant working in here,” Harley said thoughtfully. “I think I would use it a great deal if I were—”
“Well, yes,” the President said quickly, not sounding amused at all, for this was a needling side of Harley he wasn’t prepared for and he didn’t like it. “Tell me,” he said abruptly. “Are you going to help me beat some sense into this young whippersnapper tonight?”
“Why, I don’t know, Mr. President,” the Vice President said coolly out of a heady sense of having put his formidable superior temporarily on the run, “that depends on what he has to say.”
“Well, Harley,” the President said, suddenly deciding to revert to charm and intimacy, “I guess I can count on you when the chips are down, so I’m just going to refuse to worry about it. Did I ever show you my collection of coins? I have some beauties, you know. I once said inadvertently that I was mildly interested and people have been sending them to me ever since. Come over here for a minute.” And he led him over to a glass-topped table and started to point out one or two prize specimens. He was well-launched when the butler knocked and announced the Majority Leader and the senior Senator from Utah. At once the whole atmosphere changed in some subtle, overpowering way as the President turned back to greet them. The charm was still there, but a noticeable reserve had come into it, ominous and boding no good for anyone who might get in the way. He also drew himself up a little, but it was probably only their imaginations: it didn’t actually make him a whole foot taller.
Nonetheless, it was a moment when he consciously and very definitely set the mood for the discussion, and it was not a mood, they could all sense, that would brook much nonsense or suffer much opposition. He was leaving no doubt at all who he was: he was President of the United States and he intended for them to remember it.
“Brigham,” he said, shaking hands gravely, “Bob, it was good of you to come. Please sit down. Harley and I were just looking at my coin collection—after Harley got through admiring my view and trying my desk on for size, that is,” he added with a sudden grin that effectively put the Vice President off balance again.
“How are you feeling, Mr. President?” Senator Anderson asked quietly, and the knowledge that he was really asking and not just joining in a joke brought the President up short.
“I’m feeling very well,” he said abruptly. “What would you like to drink?”
“I don’t think I’ll have anything, thanks,” Brig said, and his host winked at the Vice President.
“Didn’t I tell you, Harley?” he asked in a more relaxed and easygoing tone. “I predicted this young firebrand would be all sobriety and seriousness when he got here, and so he is.”
“It seems a serious matter to me, Mr. President,” Brigham Anderson said in the same quiet voice, and the Chief Executive started to make some sharp rejoinder and then thought better of it as the Majority Leader interposed smoothly.
“I’m sure it’s serious to all of us, Brig,” he said comfortably. “I think I’ll have a scotch and soda if I may, Mr. President.”
“Sure thing,” the President said, fixing him one and then dropping into his chair and putting his feet up on the desk. “Now, then, Brigham, what’s on your mind?”
The Senator from Utah studied him for a moment before replying politely but with complete firmness.
“I resent your tone, Mr. President,” he said. “I feel you’re patronizing me and I regard this as much too serious for that.”
Bob Munson said, “For Christ’s sake!” in an exaggeratedly exasperated voice, but the President did not flare up as he obviously expected and so the diversion proved unnecessary. Instead he returned Brig’s look with interest for several seconds, studying him quietly before he spoke.
“Very well, Senator,” he said finally, taking his feet off the desk, straightening up, and leaning forward, “you do it your way.”
“First,” Brigham Anderson said with a grim little smile, “I should say that your remarks at the banquet were hardly conducive to a friendly discussion of this business.”
“That’s right,” the President agreed pleasantly, “but they were certainly conducive to a hell of a good press, and that’s what I was after. And that,” he added with satisfaction, “is what I got. Right?”
“Is that all you see in this, a good press?” Brig asked curiously. The President looked at him impassively.
“I see it as a problem in strategy,” he said, “and as such, I have a feeling I’m ahead. How do you feel, Brigham?”
His young guest looked thoughtfully out the window for a moment, into the quiet night, past the lighted Monument to the lights of Virginia across the river. Then he got up abruptly and went over to the bar.
“I think I’ll have a ginger ale,” he explained and the President laughed in a friendly way.
“That’s better,” he said. “Put something in it. We’re all friends here.”
“No, I’ll just have ginger ale,” Brig said, and the Vice President spoke up suddenly.
“That’s all I’m having, Brig,” he said, rather loudly. “Good for you.”
“Good for you, too, Harley,” the President said dryly, and a dangerous little glint came swiftly into his eyes and went away again.
“Seriously, Brig,” he said, “how else should I look at it? I don’t know up to this moment any reason at all why I shouldn’t feel the way I do. You haven’t told me anything yet, have you?”
“All right,” Senator Anderson said, sitting down again and cradling the ginger ale glass in his hands. “I will. I didn’t take this action last night just for the hell of it, you know, or just because I’m a hardnosed, stubborn little bastard. I got a phone call.”
“Good,” the President said encouragingly. “Who was it from?”
“James Morton,” the Senator from Utah said, and Harley gasped and upset his glass, the Majority Leader utte
red a profane exclamation of surprise, and only the President appeared quite, quite calm. Around his eyes, however, little lines of strain were suddenly present and when he spoke he sounded tired.
“Who is he?” he asked, and when Brig gave him the name, he shook his head in what appeared to be bemused disbelief.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said slowly. “Who would have thought? Who put him up to it?” he asked shrewdly, and Brigham Anderson frowned.
“Apparently just his own conscience,” he said. “I asked him, but he insisted he had just gotten to thinking about it and decided it was his patriotic duty to let me know. So, you see, I did have something to go on and I then did what seemed to be best under the circumstances, which was to hold the hearings open if we needed them and then clam up until I could talk to you. I really only wanted to help you and the party, Mr. President,” he said with a rather helpless little laugh. “That’s really all I had in mind, even though you’ve all been giving me hell all day long for it.”
The President looked more kindly and spoke in a much more friendly and fatherly way.
“I’m sure you did, Brigham,” he said. “I’m sure you did, and now that I understand it better, I want you to know how much I appreciate it. What a comedy of errors it has all been! All this needless criticism and antagonism and controversy, and all because you were trying to do the right thing.” He shook his head wonderingly. “I guess that’s Washington for you.”
“It hasn’t been so very pleasant, really,” Senator Anderson said, sounding so young and rueful that Bob Munson reached out and gave his shoulder a friendly squeeze.
“Of course it hasn’t,” he said, “and we probably all ought to be shot. But why didn’t you tell me, Brig? It would have saved so much trouble.”
“You know me,” Senator Anderson said simply. “I did what I thought was best in the best way I knew how. You must admit you all didn’t help very much. Including you, Mr. President.”
“I know,” the President said apologetically. “Well, I’ll just have to make it up to you somehow, Brigham. Maybe Bob and I can do some nice things for Utah one of these days—not as a bribe,” he added with a hasty grin, “but just to make up for giving you a rough time....Well, now,” he said thoughtfully, and they could see his mind clicking along swiftly, assessing the new situation and making plans, “that puts an entirely different light on it. Now that we know what the problem is, we can get to work and take care of it. What would you say if I took him out of Commerce and made him Ambassador to some place as far away as possible—Nepal, maybe? Or no, that would require confirmation by the Senate, wouldn’t it? Maybe I could just send him on a special overseas mission for me for a while until it’s all blown ov—What’s the matter?” he demanded abruptly. “Doesn’t that seem feasible to you?”
For a moment there was no reply, because all three of his guests were looking at him with varying degrees of dismay and disbelief. It was Brigham Anderson who finally spoke, and he sounded quite crushed and as though after climbing up a long hill he had suddenly found himself back down at the bottom with it to do all over again.
“You understand what I have told you, Mr. President,” he said with almost painful slowness. “This man is James Morton. He is the man who met with Bob Leffingwell in a Communist cell in Chicago. The witness Gelman was telling the truth. There was a Communist cell and your nominee for Secretary of State was in it. He lied to the subcommittee about it. He lied to the whole world about it. Doesn’t that suggest anything to you?”
The President studied him again thoughtfully for a second and then he smiled.
“It suggests to me exactly what I have been saying,” he said, “that I should send him somewhere where he’ll be out of the way for a while so we can go ahead and wind up the nomination and get Bob on the job. I’m glad you’ve told me about it, and now I’ll take the necessary steps, so you won’t need to worry about it anymore. I’m sorry for the injustice I did you and I’ll make it up to you. Is there anything more we should say about it?”
“Mr. President.” Bob Munson said, sounding rather dazed. “Mr. President, I can’t let you —”
“I’m not asking you, Bob,” the President said softly. “I’m asking the man who has us in pawn. Well, what about it, Brig? Have you anything else to suggest?”
“I think—” Harley began, but the President looked suddenly genuinely angry, and the Vice President stopped.
“I repeat,” he said in the same soft way, “I’m asking our young friend. What about it, Brigham?”
Senator Anderson gave him a bitter look and spoke in a bitter voice.
“You know what about it,” he said with contempt. “You know what about it. You’re just teasing me. You think you can play with me like a cat with a mouse. Well, you can’t. There’s just one honest thing to do under the circumstances and that’s withdraw the nomination. Withdraw it! That’s what you should do and stop playing your damned games with me.” And he glared angrily at the President, who smiled back.
“Lots of spirit,” he said. “Just lots. Calm down, Brigham. I just wanted to know where we stand.”
“Mr. President,” Senator Munson said bluntly, “I’m going to have to ask you to be more serious about this myself, or I’m going to be inclined to side with Brig if a real showdown comes. This isn’t kid stuff, and I’d suggest we act accordingly.”
“Would you, now?” the President said with a mock huffiness. “Well, you calm down too, Robert. Everybody calm down. I didn’t really think any of you would go for it, but I just wanted to throw it out and see.”
“So if we did, you wouldn’t have to take the honorable course and withdraw Leffingwell,” Senator Anderson said grimly. The President laughed.
“You youngsters do love to throw around the adjectives,” he said. “Honorable. Dishonorable. Which is which, Brigham? Suppose you tell me....Now see here,” he said with sudden force, leaning forward to emphasize his words. “Let me admit that it is quite possible that my nominee for Secretary of State is a liar, in this particular instance. But on the other hand, look at it this way. What are we up against, in this world? An extremely tough proposition, an extremely tricky adversary, an enemy that must be dealt with by every device available to the human mind. Here is a character that, on the record and on the face of it and at first blush, my angry young friend, appears to be unreliable and untrustworthy and dishonorable. Yet look at him for a moment from another point of view. Why has he shown these characteristics? Because he wants to protect a reputation carefully built over the years, a record of public service that I think we all agree has been forthright and honorable, whether one agrees with his social philosophies or not. Now. Is it not possible that a mind that self-protective, a mind that strong—yes, if you like, a mind that arrogant and unyielding—may be just exactly what we need in dealing with the Russians? Isn’t it possible that exactly those qualities that have enabled him to go through a public hearing under the eyes of the whole world and deny his own past without ever turning a hair may be exactly the sort of qualities that would enable him to give the Russians blow for blow and match them iron for iron? Consider him that way and tell me how positive you are that you are right.”
And he sat back in his chair and again put his feet on the desk, fiddling with a bronze letter-opener while his listeners did just as he had suggested and thought about his thesis. Finally Bob Munson sighed.
“Mr. President,” he said, “you’re the greatest man I’ve ever known for turning an argument inside out and making it say what it doesn’t say. I think any ordinary mortal would have some difficulty in portraying duplicity as a strength, or even considering it as such, but you seem to have managed.”
“Presidents aren’t ordinary mortals,” Brigham Anderson said shortly. “That’s what he’ll tell you.”
That’s right,” their host agreed, quite without egotism. “Ordinary mortals don’t reach this chair. But let’s don’t get off on philosophizing about Presidents. Let’s st
ick to Leffingwell. How do you answer my argument? We have a tough job to fill; we’ve got a tough mind to fill it. Whatever you think of his conduct before the subcommittee, the one thing you couldn’t call it is weak, right? He was in there fighting every inch of the way, and he didn’t yield one iota. Is that what we need to meet the Russians, or is it some wishy-washy old fuddy-duddy like Howie Sheppard, who has outlived his usefulness ten times over? You just bear in mind the fact that when you sit in this house you have to look at the whole wide world when you make your judgment on something, and then you tell me. I’m waiting.”
And he swiveled around in his chair until he was staring out the window at the Monument, so that all they had was a view of the back of his head and the powerful set of his shoulders. At that moment the Monument floodlights went out and they all looked at their watches instinctively.
“Must be midnight,” the President said in a casual tone. “I’m two minutes fast.” He set it and continued staring out the window while the Vice President poured himself another ginger ale and the Senators from Michigan and Utah exchanged a quizzically hopeless look.
“Mr. President,” Brig said finally. “I won’t buy it. I just won’t buy it.”
“Won’t buy it?” the President said, swiveling back. “Won’t buy it? You have a better argument, perhaps? Look,” he said vigorously. “I’ve been over that transcript with a fine-tooth comb, just like the rest of you, and if there was one thing Arly Richardson proved and the witness supported it was that this little den of iniquity in Chicago was basically rather innocent, correct? It was an error in judgment, a mistake that perhaps shouldn’t have been allowed to occur; but it did occur. What is the man to do, destroy himself when he stands on the eve of his greatest public service, by admitting that it occurred? Which of us is so perfect he can judge? Are you, Brigham? You never did anything dishonorable yourself? You never did anything you might be ashamed of now, that might ruin your career if it could be proven against you now, even though it may be utterly immaterial in judging the land of man you have become and the kind of public servant you are? Are you that perfect?” He stared at him challengingly, and there flashed through the Majority Leader’s mind the sickening thought, He knows. “Are you that perfect?” he repeated. “Maybe so, but by God, I’m not. And I don’t pretend I am, either, my self-righteous young friend.”